TERRAFORMING TERRA
We discuss and comment on the role agriculture will play in the containment of the CO2 problem and address protocols for terraforming the planet Earth.
A model farm template is imagined as the central methodology. A broad range of timely science news and other topics of interest are commented on.

Saturday, May 6, 2017

Pollution-Eating Robots Could Help Protect the Planet

I really think it is wiser to modify life forms to do these tasks.On the other had we are soon to abandon all oil technology anyway. All this becomes mute then.

Secondary applications can be then handled by plant products. This make the whole problem of pollution largely collapse.Add in a forty year transition to organic agricultural methods and we will have little left to complain about.

Researchers at the University of Bristol may have engineered
a new way to clean up our planet’s waterways – with a swimming machine
called “Row-bot,” which digests pollution and turns it into electricity
for fuel.

“Sometimes, tankers flush their oil tanks into the sea, so oil is released into the sea that way,” said roboticist Jonathan Rossiter, host of a TED Talk that discussed the potential these robots may have. “Wouldn’t
it be nice if we could treat that in some way using robots that could
eat the pollution the oil fields have produced? So that’s what we do –
we make robots that will eat pollution.”

The robot works by ingesting microbes into its microbial fuel cell
“stomach,” which is then digested and converted to energy that powers
the propulsion and paddles through the boat’s motor. According to
Rossiter, the robot can operate continuously for months, generating more
energy than it consumes.

This could be incredibly helpful in reducing some of the impacts we’ve
made to the environment. Not only can these robots clean up oil from
boats and tankers, they can help address other concerns – like the
chemicals which are washed away into our rivers, lakes, and streams, and
eventually our seas and oceans, generated from our increasing
populations and growing demand for food.

Once they’ve made their way to waterways, chemicals like nitrates are
absorbed by the organisms living in aquatic environments. This can lead
to threats like algae blooms, which occur when algae uses nitrates as fertilizer to mass produce new algae.

“The trouble is that when algae reproduces like this, it starves
the water of oxygen,” Rossiter said. “As soon as you do that, the other
organisms in the water can’t survive. So what do we do? We try to
produce a robot that will eat the algae, consume it, and make it safe.”

Currently, the practical application of Row-bots comes with one major
limitation – the robots themselves are not biodegradable. However,
Rossiter said addressing this restriction and finding new materials to
use for the creation of these robots is one of the goals of the
continuing research.

“Current Row-bots contain things like toxic batteries,” he said. “You
can’t leave those in the environment, so you need to track them, and
then when they’ve finished their job of work, you need to collect them.
That limits the number of Row-bots you can use. If, on the other hand,
you have a robot a little bit like a biological organism, when it comes
to the end of its life, it dies and degrades to nothing.”

Row-bots made from biodegradable materials could then be deployed by
the thousands, Rossiter said – or even in millions and billions – put to
work with the task of cleaning up the toxic chemicals, trash, dirt, and
even disease-carrying organisms in our water.

“It’s going to totally change the way in which we think about
robots,” Rossiter said, “but also it allows you to be really creative in
the way in which you think about what you can do with these robots.”

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

AI plus the ability to modify itself to consume all pollutants could result in row-bot who would seek to consume the largest polluter - man. With the ability to adapt these water born row-bots could morph into land roving robots feeding on mankind.

Gadget

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Apr 2017 - 4.1 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO rigorously described as the SPACE TIME PENDULUM, September 2010 I am pleased to report that my essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS' has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) and appeared in their June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in relativity,as well as differential geometry(pure math) and of course analysis. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled Paradigms Shift&. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data and record impressions and interpretations on material read. Do join my blog and receive Four items of interest daily Monday through Saturday.